their plight had been aspersed, somebody might put him
up to demanding a court of inquiry. Devers had even concluded it a
diplomatic move to treat the lieutenant with a courtesy hitherto
withheld. Mrs. Devers was already instructed to be particularly civil to
the bride.

Another thing had Devers done, and done most diplomatically. Realizing
his own narrow escape and suspecting his unpopularity in the regiment,
though little dreaming (which of us does?) how ill he was really
regarded, the temporary battalion commander began making friends of the
mammon of unrighteousness, so to speak, and exerting himself to show his
juniors how courteous and considerate he could be in that capacity. As a
general rule it is the subaltern who makes the greatest outcry against
the disciplinary measures of his captain, or the captain who most
vehemently condemns the policy of his colonel, who proves in turn the
most inconsiderate and annoying of superiors. But Devers was
shrewd,--"wise in his generation." He knew his reign must be short at
best. He felt that he had a difficult role to play. He had always been
an outspoken "company rights" man as opposed to the federalizing policy
of the battalion or regimental commander. He had bitterly resented in
the past any or all interference with his management of his troop, yet
had been an unsparing critic of everybody else's system, and, as we have
seen, a nimble and active opponent of anything like control on the part
of his commander. Of him it had been predicted that he would immediately
begin to "boss" the entire battalion and require his brother captains to
conform to his own ways of conducting troop affairs. He had always made
it a point to try to be cordial to other fellows' lieutenants, but was
never liked by his own. Mr. Hastings cordially hated him, but Hastings
had his peculiarities, too. As for the captains, Hay and Devers hadn't
been on speaking terms for two years. Truman could not like him, yet had
had no open rupture. Cranston and he were personally and officially
antagonistic. One and all, the officers regarded this detail under his
command as one of the most unpromising of their experience, and could
hardly contain themselves when Warren left. As for Warren, his relations
with the senior troop commander had been of the stiffest and most formal
character ever since the close of the campaign.

But just as he had baffled his own commanders in the past, so now did
Devers baffle all. F